Tribute to our Founder and Friend, Dr. Ty Cobb
Wednesday, January 15, 2025
NSF Hybrid Event
In-Person at
Tamarack Casino
13101 S. Virginia St, Reno, NV
(Park and enter using Banquet Hall door on the north side of the building)
Breakfast served 8:00-9:00am, Forum 9:00-10:15am
$30 members/$35 guests
Virtual on Zoom
Forum 9:00-10:15am PST
Register in advance for this webinar:
https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_VrnjbvNVRcOmxTCAu4GozA
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.
KEYNOTE SPEAKER:
Prof Barbara Walker
UNR, Professor of Russian History
The NSF family wishes everyone peace, happiness, and good health in 2025!
As many of you know, our dear friend and NSF Founder, Dr. Ty Cobb, passed away peacefully on December 7, 2024. Dr. Cobb was a long-time Reno resident and a fourth-generation Nevadan who had a profound impact on national security initiatives, locally, nationally, and globally. Dr. Cobb established the National Security Forum in 2009 with a vision of stimulating discussion and civil discourse around critical national and global security issues.
Dr. Cobb served in the U.S. Army for twenty-six years and rose to the rank of Colonel during the duration of his Army career. Upon his service in the Army, he was a tenured professor at West Point teaching Soviet Studies. He served as the European and Soviet Affairs Directorate (1983-1988) in the National Security Council, and as Special Assistant to the President (1988-1989) and Senior Director of the International Programs and Technology Affairs Directorate. In 2005, he was appointed to be the Nevada Civilian Aide to the Secretary of the Army and was the recipient of the University of Nevada’s “Distinguished Nevadan” honor in 2017.
With an accumulated wealth of knowledge and experience, Dr. Cobb returned to his hometown of Reno after government service and quickly found himself in high demand as a thoughtful sounding board about national and global security topics. Informal breakfast meetings at the Gold ‘N Silver quickly morphed into more formal programs at the Ramada Inn and finally into the National Security Forum. Ty helped us think about the world from many different perspectives. He always reminded us that we each have a role in national security even if that was only to stay informed and talk to our friends and neighbors. And he always stressed that having and sharing different opinions about important and timely issues was what makes American democracy work and keeps our Republic secure.
I was honored to be asked by Ty to assume the role of NSF Program Director in 2018. Along with the NSF Board, staff, volunteers, Friends of the Forum, members, and all of you, I have worked hard to keep Ty’s spirit alive and to ensure NSF remains powerful force in our community for enhancing civil discourse and cultivating an informed citizenry. Ty was a mentor, friend, colleague, and inspiration. He was a hardworking, dedicated, and generous person who touched the lives of us who knew him and many more who benefited from his knowledge and big heart. All who had the pleasure and good fortune to know him feel his loss profoundly. He will always live on in our hearts and in NSF.
Our NSF breakfast forum on January 15th will be a tribute to our friend Dr. Ty Cobb. Dr. Barbara Walker, UNR Professor of Russian History, will give the featured presentation. Ty had the Russia portfolio on Regan’s National Security Council (NSC) during many hot and cold days of the Cold War. Russia was his beat in the national security world, even after the wall came down and peace and unification seemed inevitable. As a friends, colleagues, and fellow Russian experts, Ty and Barbara knew – even when the rest of the national security community had moved on to other threats – that the sleeping bear would wake up someday and be ready for another fight. They were right!
Some of you had the pleasure of hearing Dr. Walker give some brief remarks about Putin’s Russia at our NSF forum in October. At that event there were many requests to have her back to give the featured presentation. It seemed only fitting to have Dr. Walker share her insight about the threat from Russia now and in the future during the Ty Cobb Tribute Forum. After her presentation, I will invite others joining us in person and on Zoom to share thoughts and stories about Ty. I am sure there are many! If you have fun pictures of Ty and/or would like to share some words on the 15th, please email me at: [email protected].
The Cobb family is also holding a Celebration of Life for Ty at the Reno Elks Lodge on January 26th from 2-4pm. I will share the RSVP link at our program.
NSF remains committed to keeping you informed about issues beyond the headlines and from multiple perspectives. Stay up to date on NSF programs by subscribing to our mailing list at: NSF Mailing List or better yet become a member at: Become a Member. We meet at Tamarack Casino in South Reno. When you turn into the parking lot turn right and follow the signs for the “Banquet Room.” Park anywhere on the northside of the building and enter via the walkway into the reception hall for the banquet room. We will see you there!!! You can always email Kimberly at: [email protected] or me at: [email protected] if you have questions or need more information about the location.
Barbara Walker, PhD, has published on a broad range of historical topics in the area of Russian and Soviet intellectual life and its economic foundations, social organization and culture. More recently, she has branched out to explore the nature of expertise, specifically “information expertise,” in her current book project, A War of Experts: Soviet and American knowledge networks in Cold War competition and collaboration. Her book will present the intertwined stories of a variety of lively and committed “information experts” in the Cold War United States and Soviet Union, including early electronic computer designers, U.S.-Soviet research exchange scholars, journalists and Soviet dissidents. Information professionals in the area of intelligence make their appearance too. The book focuses on the efforts of these ambitious, often passionate “experts” to multiply their numbers and to expand the influence of their expertise in this period. To accomplish these goals, they built on networks and traditions reaching back into the 19th century, in which lay the origins of the professionalization of expertise in many areas. Walker’s research has been supported by grants and fellowships from the Thomas Watson Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the International Research Exchange (IREX), American Councils, the Hoover Institution at Stanford, the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, the University of Nevada, Reno, Core Humanities Program and others.
The National Security Forum is a non-partisan, educational, nonprofit organization dedicated to fostering civil discourse and informed discussion about timely and important national security topics. We bring expert speakers from around the U.S. to talk about national and international security, domestic and foreign terrorism, economic and financial threats, the safety of our food and water supply, energy policy, electrical grid stability, and a variety of other topics that affect all Americans. The National Security Forum partners with the Washoe County School District to host an annual Youth Security Forum to encourage future generations national security leaders.
To support NSF continuing to bring national security programs to our community and our local students please join NSF as a member or Friend of the Forum at: https://nationalsecurityforum.org/membership/about-our-membership/